The No Tool Zone

In his book, Fourth Generation Management Brian Joiner outlined the best known ways to get work done effectively.  The first three generations include:

1. Management by Doing.  This to me is the path of least resistance and is still used today.  The attitude is “I’ll just do it myself.”
2. Management by Directing.  The Master-Apprentice relationship comes to mind.  Learn by taking direction from a Master.
3. Management by Results.  Forget the detail, just tell me what you want.  So, managers and workers are given dictates around targets and incentives like “increase sales by 12% next year.”

The first three generations all have problems as outlined by Dr. Joiner.  Management by Doing has a capacity issue; Managment by Directing faces a micromanagement problem; and  Management by Results leads to organizations with manipulated systems by distorting figures and sub-optimization.  All three types are bundled to comprise command and control types of thinking.

The fourth generation is made up of systems thinking.  The ability to understand what Dr. W. Edwards Deming would describe as his System of Profound Knowledge with four areas.

1. Appreciation for a System
2. Theory of Variation
3. Theory of Knowledge
4. Psychology

Understanding our organizations as systems is both the hardest concept and most rewarding.  The challenge is still that too few organizations use this type of thinking.  The good news for early adopters is the huge competitive advantage that systems thinking provides.

The ability of organizations to grasp the concepts of systems thinking can be a frustrating experience.  The transformation is difficult as we have all been taught over the years completely different management assumptions.  But that is what they are assumptions.

The problem with assumptions in any culture is that they become fact, even if they are not based on fact.  Organizations have been built around around these assumptions for nearly 100 years.  The fact that they are still in business or even growing means that these assumptions are true.

But what if we had a different approach to improving work.  Most organizations are opposed because executives have individually been able to succeed using these assumptions.  Why change?

I find it interesting with all the talk about why workers never change there is so little discussion about why managers and executives never change.  These same managers and executives believe they are changing things when in reality it is as Russell Ackoff said  they are only “doing the wrong thing righter.”  A management paradox on a gigantic scale.

And so it goes with the first three generations of management (command and control) that we have executives succeeding in a flawed system, but their individual success perpetuates mediocrity.  The change of thinking required in management needs an intervention.  This intervention means we have to collectively unlearn our current assumptions and relearn principles of management that are opposite those now known.

The new principles mean we must dump things like:

1. Reliance on inspection
2. Rewards and incentives
3. Numerical targets
4. Cost accounting as the driver of decisions
5. Cynicism of workers
6. Managers make decisions, workers work
7. Functional specialization
8. Rank and rating
9. Technology as a panacea

The above assumptions that many believe these are good organizations have all been challenged by better thinking.  The ability for organizations to improve include being able to individually, collectively and organizationally challenge these assumptions. 

I foresee two ways that organizations will discard the old generations and come to systems thinking.  First, a stable company that strives to get better by always looking for an edge.  The second is under duress as the avalanche of competition and old thinking falls upon them.  The latter is usually too late.

Leave me a comment. . . share your opinion!  Click on comments below.

Tripp Babbitt is a speaker, blogger and consultant to service industry (private and public).  His organization helps executives find a better way to make the work work.  Download free from www.newsystemsthinking.com “Understanding Your Organization as a System” and gain knowledge of systems thinking or contact us about our intervention services at info@newsystemsthinking.com.  Reach him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/TriBabbittor LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/trippbabbitt.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Our Forefathers in the US wrote the above words for a reason.  To declare independence from Great Britain and set the tone for a new world.  That world has changed many times since then . . . some good and some not so good.

Regardless, the fact that “all men are created equal” has been displayed again and again in history.  There is no time like the present to bring it up again.

Whenever I talk in terms of the system being accountable for 95% of the performance of any organization and 5% is attributable to an individual.  I get all types of resistance.  Somehow, this is interpreted (wrongly) as meaning that the individual doesn’t matter in applying systems thinking.  This is far from the intended line of thought.

In systems thinking (especially the Vanguard Method), the individual becomes more important, not less.  Think about it, when decision-making is put back with the work we wind up with workers that have engaged minds.  It is to have relevance in a job and not just an environment of policies, rules, scripts and other command and control shenanigans.

Individuals with understanding of customer purpose and armed with customer measures have great freedom to experiment with method in pursuit of perfection.  This makes the individual more relevant and the culture energized.

There is no need to coerce people with rewards and incentives to do things that are detrimental to the system.  Individuals do things with intrinsic motivation and aren’t required to be cajoled or prodded.  A novel concept for a business world filled with the fact that some are “more equal” than others.

It is our history of manager’s managing and worker’s working that has led us to our current work design.  This is ineffective and inefficient.  Why not have the brains of all people in an organization working on building a better system and not just a few?

I am disappointed in the fact that so few organizations see the benefit of this thinking.  We stand to make the individual less relevant with our current line of thinking.  So, if you want to stand up for the individual’s place in an organization than systems thinking puts you in better stead.

Leave me a comment. . . share your opinion!  Click on comments below.

Tripp Babbitt is a speaker, blogger and consultant to service industry (private and public).  His organization helps executives find a better way to make the work work.  Download free from www.newsystemsthinking.com “Understanding Your Organization as a System” and gain knowledge of systems thinking or contact us about our intervention services at info@newsystemsthinking.com.  Reach him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/TriBabbittor LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/trippbabbitt.

John Seddon a long-time critic of Deliverology will be addressing the subject in the State of California tomorrow.  He will speaking to the California Faculty Association (CFA). 

Sir Michael Barber the inventor of Deliverology under the Tony Blair regime has managed  to slip across the Atlantic and introduce a bad idea to the US.  “Mr. Targets” is his nickname and his narrow-minded approach has proven to be short-sighted.  Education systems across the US are now flocking to this approach without discerning the facts.

Deliverology is a repackaged MBO (Management By Objectives) program.  We set out goals with arbitrary numerical targets where the aim becomes to achieve the target and not improve the education system. 

In California such goals have been set to increase graduation rates by 8%.  So why 8%?  What is wrong with 7%? Or how about a stretch goal of say 16%?  This is all incredibly bad thinking on the part of California State Trustees.  A goal without a method is a wish.

What the Trustees are missing is the fact that everyone focuses their efforts to achieve the number.  This leads to poor quality and considerable waste in money.  But proponents wrongly point to achievement of the target.  This leads to building a poor education system.

What California and other US States need to understand is that Deliverology is here and that there is a reason that Barber has shown up in the US . . . it wasn’t working in the UK.  Disturbing that we continue to follow bad theory and make a mess of things here in the US.

Leave me a comment. . . share your opinion!  Click on comments below.

Tripp Babbitt is a speaker, blogger and consultant to service industry (private and public).  His organization helps executives find a better way to make the work work.  Download free from www.newsystemsthinking.com “Understanding Your Organization as a System” and gain knowledge of systems thinking or contact us about our intervention services at info@newsystemsthinking.com.  Reach him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/TriBabbitt or LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/trippbabbitt.

An argument for the ages and I have had it on Twitter, Linked-In, my seminars and many other places.  The argument starts with “what is more important revenue or serving the customer?”  It is inconceivable that an argument exists on this subject, but it does.

I want to be clear that without a customer there is no revenue (or profit for that matter).  This is not up for debate . . . the subject is moot.

How did we get here?  How could this even be argued?  We have been brain-washed by MBAs and business classes that teach us that maximizing shareholder wealth is our aim.

This is why we have such dysfunction especially in the American public and private sector.  We talk of cutting costs, increasing output, raising revenue, balancing the budgets and other financial or productivity oriented non-sense that makes service worse AND increases costs.

And so it is with service organizations (private and public).  The management paradox that productivity and financial targets and measures makes things worse.  These are lagging measures,  they are the result of creating value for a customer.

Those financial and productivity measures mean little.  The real measures are measures of things that matter to the customer.  Too bad service organizations are too busy paying attention to costs and revenue that they never get this perspective.

The customer perspective and understanding what matters to them is what we are here to do.  Creating an experience that delights customers is more important than driving looking out the rear-view mirror (W. Edwards Deming).  And believe me management needs perspective.

There is another element that a wrong focus leads to and that is selfishness.  Executives with the power to change things focus attention on lagging measures . . . this is an internal focus.  What do I get for hitting my numbers?  Bonuses, rewards something for me me me. 

So if you want to be selfless how about serving the customer for a change.  Focus on their needs, what they want in service.  Not what costs to slash or revenue to chase that compromises the customer relationship where customers say “they’re just in it for the money . . . they don’t care about me.”

Here is the real paradox you need to deal with in service:

Improved service reduces costs and improves revenue.

Now that is a reward.  Doing right by the customer by designing the service system for them and not to them will increase profits.

Leave me a comment. . . share your opinion!  Click on comments below.

Tripp Babbitt is a speaker, blogger and consultant to service industry (private and public).  His organization helps executives find a better way to make the work work.  Download free from www.newsystemsthinking.com “Understanding Your Organization as a System” and gain knowledge of systems thinking or contact us about our intervention services at info@newsystemsthinking.com.  Reach him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/TriBabbittor LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/trippbabbitt.